Context & objectives

The EU-FLEGT Action Plan is an initiative designed to combat illegal logging worldwide.

Our goal was to build the final piece of this project: an interactive dashboard presenting FLEGT program data, in order to measure the program's impact on forest infrastructure. It needed to assist decision-making surrounding the future of the FLEGT initiative, but also be accessible to the public.

We did not start from scratch for this project: the client had already designed many of the visuals required for the dashboard. Our task was to transform these into a comprehensive, intuitive, and user-friendly interactive dashboard for a wider audience.

Approach

1. Consolidating the data

We began by consolidating data from multiple sources. We wanted to enable users to navigate through information and metrics using buttons, creating the impression of staying on a single page. For this we chose Microsoft Power BI, a business intelligence platform that embeds dashboards in webpages.

During consolidation, we combined several CSV files from two primary sources:

• Compiled data - secondary data scraped or compiled from multiple web sources

• Field-collected data - information gathered from interviews with individuals living in areas affected by illegal logging

We used Python to consolidate this data. This allowed us to write scripts that merge and transform data from various sources. Python also offers a flexible solution that can be updated whenever needed.

2. Building the dashboard

Next, we moved on to building the interactive dashboard.

We leveraged Power BI’s data modeling technique called star schema to incorporate data efficiently. This method delivers faster loading times and a modular design that the client can easily expand in the future.

We also created an intuitive navigation system using bookmarks and buttons with a user-friendly flow, minimizing confusion about which buttons to press and in what order.

Results

You can view the final dashboard at this public link. We built it in under 30 days, which shows how quickly a dashboard can go from concept to reality, allowing businesses to benefit from data visualization and business intelligence rapidly.

This dashboard raises awareness of illegal logging's impact on local communities, economies, and the environment. And it attracts far more attention than a static, 30-page PDF report. The same principle applies to businesses across nearly every industry and function: employees are more likely to engage with interactive dashboards than static reports, making them more effective for decision-making.

This project demonstrates the power of dashboards for visualizing KPIs. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a dashboard is worth a thousand more!